Until Tuesday (14 page)

CHAPTER 13

THANKSGIVING

And I will put my father to the test,

See if the old man knows me now, on sight,

or fails to, after twenty years apart.

—H
OMER
,
T
HE
O
DYSSEY

I buried the evening in my mind. This wasn’t easy to do
with PTSD, but something told me I needed to rid myself of the bad thoughts to survive. My mind was full enough with the memories of Iraq and our betrayal of Ali, Maher, and so many others, and that fall I was becoming increasingly anxious about Afghanistan, even publishing a piece on “endless Army mission creep” there. The piece noted that the Marshall Plan, the Allied effort to rebuild Europe after World War II, had been run by the State Department. The rebuilding effort in Iraq, because of State Department deference and incompetence, was being run by the military and staffed by soldiers. With so much of my time focused on military disaster, both real and surmised, I needed stability in my life.

And besides, Tuesday and I had a far more important mission to prepare for than a college class. That Thanksgiving, we were going home to spend time with my family.

Family had always been the bedrock of my life. I didn’t join the Army because of family issues or even as a means of escape. Ronald Reagan, and his vision of a society founded on morality and hard work, made me want to enter public service. When the nation needed us, Bush told us to shop for washing machines; Reagan, like Kennedy before him, challenged us to set a personal example. I chose the Army as my means of service, perhaps as an answer to my papá. He was an economist, and he fought the Cuban dictatorship with words and numbers. As a teenager, I joined street rallies against Castro and supported Hermanos al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue), which supported “the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active nonviolence.” If I challenged my papá’s methods, though, I never questioned his integrity, intelligence, or honor. He was the man I admired. I grew up wanting to be like him, but in my own way.

When I returned from my first tour in Iraq, the only people I wanted to see were my parents. For me, they were life in America. But they weren’t at the armory at Fort Carson to greet me like all the other families. This was my fault. I told them it wasn’t necessary to fly all that way, that it would be fine to see them in a few weeks in Washington, D.C. I was wrong. Stepping off the transport plane after a combat tour was a profound experience, simultaneously exhilarating and disorienting. It was impossible not to be overcome with relief and joy. Everyone was rushing to hug their wives, husbands, children, girlfriends, parents, but as I moved alone through the crowd I felt that joy turn into disillusionment. I was cut off from the world I had known in Iraq, but without someone to welcome me home I didn’t feel a part of this world either. At the end of the crowd, I just kept walking, alone, out of the armory and into the bright Colorado sun.

At the end of my second tour, I didn’t ask my parents to meet me. I can’t even say why. I just didn’t feel like seeing anybody, I guess, not even them. By then, I was a different person. Isolated. Anxious. Obsessed with the war . . . and with the past. In a way, I suppose I hadn’t come all the way back, and that made me reluctant to meet the people I had always loved. No matter how much I wanted to keep my scars from my parents, though, they knew. Parents always know. That’s why my papá demanded, in a moment of weakness, “You’re not going to be another broken soldier.” He didn’t recognize me anymore, and he was afraid.

A few weeks later, he sent me an email urging me to change my mind. Among other things, he wrote:

I’m shocked, saddened, and dismayed (and a few other things along that line). . . . I have to tell you from the bottom of my heart that I firmly believe you have made a wrong decision [in not taking the Emergency Management job], one that may affect you greatly in the future, and not positively. Certain signals were worrisome, among which, in my opinion (I stress this!) is your joining groups of disabled vets. There are two reasons this was worrisome to me: (a) I believe many of the members of those groups, while presumably supporting each other, essentially fall into the trap (vicious circle) of helping each other take maximum advantage of disability benefits, thereby deepening their own disability and strengthening their desire to live “on the dole” rather than on overcoming disability; and (b) I also believe that the members of those groups tend to drag each other down to the “lowest common denominator,” similar to the weakest link in a chain.

I responded eight hours later, at one thirty in the morning, with a message I still think sums up my life path since Iraq better than any other:

Papá:

I understand your points and appreciate your candor, concern and love.

Much of what you say is sound and very reasonable. I certainly do not aim to descend to the lowest common denominator of the living. That being said, I have neglected some issues that are fundamentally weakening my ability and the possibility to thrive and live a happy life.

I am, in fact, committed to being honest with myself so that I can overcome this situation. This includes not succumbing to the path of least resistance (denial) but rather the path of hardship which I know will lead to my evolution.

Despite the path that I have now embarked on which includes some elements of fear, I feel more at peace and consequently a greater sense of assurance that I can move forward in the fashion that is truly in keeping with what I am about and where I will end up.

I don’t expect you to fully realize what I’m saying as my experiences are but personal stories to you. To me, they are blood, sweat and tears that consume my being. . . .

I sounded reasonable, I think, but I was reeling. I don’t think my father can ever realize how painful it was for me to lose his respect. I went down the rabbit hole after that. Except for thumbing my nose at my parents by sending them my acceptance letter to Columbia, I didn’t speak to them for months. I didn’t tell them I wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving, I just didn’t show up. This was unprecedented in the Montalván family, and it was probably one of the primary reasons I spent that weekend blasted on Bacardi, contemplating the idea of falling asleep and never waking up.

A few weeks later, on December 15, 2007, I received another email from my father that said in part:

I went to a recommended psychiatrist to try to understand what’s happened between us. We talked for an hour, he recommended some readings and a couple of websites, which I’ve been reading.

While my level of understanding is still in initial stages, I now understand that I should not have sent you that email, and I apologize. I respect your decision [not to speak to me anymore], but if you want to help me understand, I’ll be here for you anytime.

This was a major concession. Latino men of my father’s generation don’t go to therapists. They never say, “I don’t understand. Please help me.” And they rarely apologize. We talked on the phone the next day, and although I don’t remember what we said, I remember the relief at hearing his voice. “Just count on me—we’re in this together,” he wrote me the next night. I sat in my furniture-less apartment and cried when I read that line.

I was deeply confused. I was still angry at my father, but he had reached out to me, and I missed my parents terribly. I couldn’t bear the thought of missing our family Christmas, and not only because I feared spending another holiday alone, except for alcohol, in my empty apartment. So two days before Christmas, I did what I always did when I needed help: I called Father Tim.

Father Tim was a Jesuit priest in California, and I had met him, by phone, after my second tour ended in the spring of 2006. He was not affiliated with the armed forces at that time, but I was given his name by a friend and fellow soldier. It was one of those informal suggestions. “Hey, I know what you’re going through, man. This guy can help.”

I grew up a practicing Catholic, so I can say this without hesitation: Father Tim was the ideal priest. He knew the military, having been a chaplain for collegiate ROTC, and he was highly educated. He had five advanced degrees, including a PhD in neurobiology, so he understood how my traumatic brain injury affected my thoughts, actions, and impulse control. He was a former alcoholic. He had worked the twelve steps hard for thirty years, and he still worked them every day because an alcoholic, like a PTSD sufferer, is never healed. He was very compassionate. He was very patient and considerate. Perhaps because of his past, he never condemned my choices or mistakes. He listened. He made suggestions, but he also guided me toward my own solutions. He was deeply religious, and he shared with me his beliefs, but he never forced me to agree with them as a condition of receiving his solace. I don’t know how many soldiers he was talking with at that time. It must have been dozens, maybe more, and yet he was available at any time, day or night. I called him at my lowest moments, often at four in the morning, but he never turned away a request to talk. There were months when Father Tim and I talked every day, but he never complained.

When I told him about Papá’s letter, he told me simply, “Go home.”

I arrived unannounced in the middle of Noche Buena, our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Mamá threw her arms around me, her cheeks glistening with tears. It was hard to see the hurt and fear in her face, and to know how much suffering my condition had caused her. When Papá hugged me, I saw that he was crying, too. That’s when I broke down, because I had never seen my father in tears. That’s something else Latino men of his generation never do.

“I’m sorry,” he said, but I didn’t need the words. We held each other, two big men over six feet tall, crying on each other’s shoulders, and that was more than enough.

I won’t say it was easy after that. It wasn’t. I was still deep in the grip of PTSD, and social interactions, even with my mother and father, were mentally grinding. So I rarely spoke to my parents over the next year. Between classes at Columbia and the Brooklyn VA hospital, I didn’t have the energy. But I no longer hated them. I no longer thought that they were working against me, like the Army and society at large. I no longer felt betrayed by my father’s words. In early May 2008, around the time of the subway attack, I bottomed out. Unable to navigate the VA bureaucracy and desperate for decent medical care, I called my papá. He traveled to New York and sat with me during a difficult meeting with the hospital board. I didn’t get the proper care I needed, even after the meeting, but having my father there kept me sane. He understood. He was on my side.

So the trip to Washington, D.C., for Thanksgiving 2008 was not perilous, but it was important to me nonetheless. My parents were my primary emotional support, and I wanted them to like Tuesday. Even more than that, I wanted them to be impressed with him. I knew they were skeptical. When I told Papá about Tuesday, and that he knew eighty commands, he played it off with a laugh. “Wow,” he said. “That’s more than you know.”

Mamá didn’t say anything. Even more than my father, she understood the seriousness of my situation, because she knew me better than anyone. She had watched me trying to readjust to life in the United States; she had read my writings and knew I spent my last Thanksgiving drunk on rum, wondering if the government would make good on its promises before it was too late. She saw the changes in me, and she was terrified. Truly terrified.

She didn’t believe Tuesday was the answer. Her son was suffering from mental and physical illness. He was alone. He was possibly suicidal. The thought that a dog—a dog!—could solve those problems seemed ludicrous to her. She didn’t understand what Tuesday could do, in terms of physical assistance. Unless you’ve seen a service dog balancing, stabilizing, and doing chores for a disabled person, you can’t understand how much it affects that person’s life. It is an extraordinary daily change.

But more than that, my mother wasn’t a dog person. I mean, she never even liked my giant schnauzer Max. She never saw how much he meant to me; she only saw the hair and the dirt. She didn’t understand how much animal companionship can affect your psychology and moods . . . or ease your loneliness and pain.

I wanted to convince her that Tuesday was a good idea. I didn’t want her to worry about me, and I didn’t want her to think I was forgoing better options because of my faith in him. I was attending therapy, both one-on-one counseling and group counseling with other veterans, and regularly taking more than twenty different medicines for my various conditions. Tuesday was an addition to those treatments, and he was making a difference. If I could convince a skeptic like Mamá of that, then, frankly, I’d feel more confident of my chances for success. And confidence matters.